


I've Got You Under My Skin

by LyricWing



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (but it wears off), Ambiguous Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Awkward, F/M, Hopelessly Mushy, Love Confessions, Porn with Feelings, Post-Canon, Sex Pollen, Steamy, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:34:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25907416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyricWing/pseuds/LyricWing
Summary: Bernadetta was satisfied. The war was over, she had returned to House Varley, and she was living a peaceful, solitary life. The flowers never responded when she talked to them, but that was fine; she knew how to be happy by herself. Of course, she never foresaw that the newest addition to her family of plants would be so problematic.Or that the subject of her most repressed fantasies would come knocking on her door at the worst possible time.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Bernadetta von Varley
Comments: 8
Kudos: 81





	I've Got You Under My Skin

**Author's Note:**

> This...took a very long time. I don't know if it's actually good, but hey, two cakes, right?
> 
> The title is from a song of the same name. I quite like the version by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. :>

On a still Lone Moon morning, Bernadetta entered the gardens of Varley Estate with a wooden box tucked under her arm.

“Good morning, everyone!” She greeted.

The plants that made their home on the shelves of a wrought iron case bobbed idly in the breeze as if to say, “Good morning, Bernadetta!”

She grinned at her small assembly of friends, all housed in clay pots painted with colorful animals. It was a lovely day to be outside. Ever since Bernadetta had inherited House Varley after the war, the manor seemed especially vacant, almost sepulchral. With winter winding down, it was time for Bernie-bear to come out of hibernation and enjoy the sunshine and all the fresh growth that emerged in early spring.

Bernadetta presented the wooden box to the welcoming committee. “A new friend just arrived today. Isn't that great?”

Her flowers beamed back at her, bright, beautiful, and silent.

Of course they wouldn't respond. Bernadetta knew she kept quiet company nowadays; she hadn't talked to very many people at all since coming home from Garreg Mach. But there was still plenty for her to do, a territory to manage, stories to write, music to play, flowers to tend to. Speaking of which...

She directed her attention to the box in her hands, working it open and then carefully separating folds of damp cloth to peer in awe at her new arrival. 

“Hello,” she whispered to it in a quivering voice.

Bernadetta tenderly ran her fingers along the latest addition to her garden, starting from the heavy bulb at its base and moving upward along the length of its rigid, hearty stalk. She traced the edges of its pointed leaves, which had gotten somewhat crumpled from travel. At its tip, her fingertips studied the fibrous sepals that protected the plant's single, unopened bud, traces of white and pink visible inside. Once the flower bloomed, she would hopefully be able to match its image to a reference in her botany books and determine what exactly it was.

“Isn't it fascinating?” She exclaimed, whirling around to show the exotic plant to—

No one.

There was no one there, no one to share her excitement, only the wind and distant birdsong in far off trees. The potted flowers nodded along, even though Bernadetta wasn't talking anymore. She was alone, just like she had always wanted. 

Yes, she was alone, and she had always preferred it that way and always would. She was simply too... _Bernie_ for things to be any other way. With that determination made, she immediately donned her gardening gloves. In the days preceding the expected arrival, she had prepared the necessary housewarming materials so that she could get right to planting as soon as the day came. She set the new plant in a pot that she had previously filled partway with soil, the image of a dark, amber-eyed cat having been painted on the side. (It had been quite difficult to blend just the right the shade of amber, but it had been worth it!) After lovingly surrounding the plant's bulb with more rich soil, she snatched up her watering can and filled it at the spigot nearby.

“I hope you didn't get too thirsty on your long trip,” she cooed, sprinkling the earth around the plant with a gentle rainfall.

With the watering complete, Bernadetta set the newly potted plant in the space she had prepared for it on a shelf among its siblings. She removed and set aside her gardening gloves and nodded, satisfied—it was a job well done, one that would probably make Professor Byleth proud, if her old professor were to see. She then bent forward towards the plant to make her introduction, her face only a few centimeters away.

“It's so nice to finally meet you!” She spoke with hushed excitement, stroking the plant's bud like it was a scared kitten. “My name is Bernadetta, but you can call me Bernie! I'm going to take good care of you, so don't worry, okay? Oh, I'm so exited to see you bloom! You're going to be so pretty—I can't wait!”

Suddenly, the flower's petals burst apart all at once, expelling a dense cloud of fine yellow powder directly into Bernadetta's face. The pollen invaded her airways when she gasped in surprise, causing her to sneeze.

“Aww, great job, Bernie!” She sputtered, coughing out chalky, yellow puffs of air. “Now look what you've done!”

Her entire face was covered in a film, as though she had walked through a spider's web. The dust had gotten into her eyes, nose, and mouth, blinding and choking her at the same time. As she wheezed and hacked to reclaim her lungs, tears welled in her stinging eyes, ready clear them of the intrusion. She had to get back to her room, back to safety. Disoriented, she stumbled in what she thought was the direction of the house only to kick over her watering can and trip on her trowel, crying out as she fell onto the pebbled walkway.

Her palms and knees stinging from the impact, the tears leaked out of her eyes, leaving tracks in the layer of powder as they ran down her face. With her vision clearing, she examined her reddened hands, sniffling and spitting out pasty globs onto the ground.

She looked up forlornly; there was still no one there to offer her their hand and help her up.

Hauling herself to her feet, she fled back to the manor, unable to appreciate the way the trouble-making flower's brilliant magenta petals seemed to wave farewell in the breeze. 

On reaching her bedroom, she cut straight through into the adjoining bathroom to snatch up a cloth, wet it at the sink, and scrub desperately at her face. She caught her own miserable gaze in her mirror in the midst of her agitated wiping. This was not how she had hoped her day would go. 

It was times like these when Bernadetta felt like everything was going wrong that loneliness ached behind her ribs. She could never escape from her own anxieties even if she hid away in her room for all eternity, but one thing she had learned at Garreg Mach was how company sometimes made her pain easier to bear. She missed the academy. Sure, she had spent a lot of her time there holed up in her dormitory room, but there were some things that were worth giving up the comfort of solitude, at least for a little while. Even things (and people) that had been terrifying at first came to reveal their inner good to her over time. If she had never left, there would have been so much she would have missed out on. Friends she wouldn't have made. A smile she would have never seen.

Without warning, a flurry of goosebumps raced up Bernadetta's spine like a glissando, making her shiver. Strange, the weather was far too warm for her to get a chill like that all of a sudden. However, the feeling persisted, and she determined that her skin didn't feel cold so much as...alert. The sensation trickled down her arms, the flesh there waiting for something (or someone) so obstinately that it started to itch. Scratching proved to be painful rather than relieving for her over-charged nerves, and she groaned in frustration. Her anxiety spiked. What was happening to her? Was she going to die? She needed to lie down.

Bernadetta had scarcely lain back on her bed when a vivid warmth bloomed in her chest, making her gasp. It was a warmth she felt compelled to arch up into as it traveled slowly down her body like a hand (someone's in particular, perhaps) smoothing wrinkles out of a bed sheet. Lower and lower still it crept until it ignited into a wildfire in her lower belly that radiated outward to consume her whole body in a heady blaze. At the heart of the heat, the muscles of her sex stretched pleasantly, and concentrated want melted out of her heated passage.

“Aah!” Bernadetta's thighs rubbed together in an immediate, subconscious quest for friction.

Unbidden, images of a slight smile and piercing copper eyes sprung to the forefront of her mind, thoughts that normally she permitted herself to have only in the darkest and most private hours of the night, burrowed in a cocoon of blankets and pillows. The phantom of that smile kissed the side of her neck, goosebumps prickling in its wake. Hands roved across her yearning body and pressed into her tender breasts. How would those piercing eyes behold her if they could see beneath her clothing? Would they ignite like she had? Would their gaze be followed by callused fingers, devouring mouth, or... _something else_ , pushed deep inside where it was most needed?

A knock on her bedroom door brought her startlingly out of her trance followed by the voice of the manor's head steward.

“Countess, you have a visitor here to see you.”

A visitor? No! Not now! Not anytime, really, but especially not _now!_ Unaware of his lady's plight, the steward continued.

“Master Felix Fraldarius awaits you in the parlor. Will you be seeing him?”

Bernadetta's throat seized around what little air hadn't been punched out of her by the mention of his name. She wondered ruefully what she had done wrong to merit a punishment of this magnitude. _Him_ coming here _today_ when she was in this unusual state of devastating longing, when his apparition had just been buried in—well, she wasn't going to admit _where_ , or that it had been an apparition of _him_ , or that there had even been an apparition _at all_. All roads led to heartbreak, so she kept off the road entirely, sequestered safely in her room.

But what waited for her in her parlor was no apparition. The road lay paved before her, and at the end of it, a face of which she had several sketches secreted away in her desk drawer. Maybe it wasn't a curse that had arrived on her doorstep, but an opportunity. It had been moons since she last saw him, and if she turned him away today, he might not ever come back. Would she really be content to let her memories of him decay, leaving her colorless two-dimensional renderings as the only remembrance of his face? 

Shaking but determined, she sat up, doing her best to ignore the current of lightning that ran through her veins at the motion.

“My lady?” Came the voice of the steward through the door.

“I-I'll be right there!”

First, she would have to change her underwear.

***

Felix endured an uneasy silence alone in the Varley parlor, his fingertips drumming an anxious rhythm into the side of his teacup, muted by his leather gloves. The tea served by the man who had greeted him at the door wasn't the kind he preferred—it was much too sweet—but he absently sipped at it nonetheless in an effort to ameliorate the rolling in his gut. 

There was nothing wrong with the small couch on which he sat. Its legs and frame were ornately carved and polished, and its cushions were upholstered as richly as any piece of furniture he had seen in any other noble home. Nor was there anything wrong with the parlor itself. Oil paintings hung on the papered walls on three sides of the room, while the remaining wall primarily comprised large windows that overlooked the well-kept grounds outside. Fitting for any noble house, the parlor projected an ostentatious image to which Felix remained vehemently impartial. Even in his detachment, he appreciated having many subjects between which his eyes could wander, many patterns and images to examine, many places to rest his gaze other than the chair across the low table in front of him in which someone else would soon sit.

_I wanted to see you smile again._

No matter where he looked, he could still hear her tremulous voice echoing in his head. Over half a year ago, when she had first made that remark, he had been able to parry her admission easily enough. It was objectively ridiculous that someone as skittish and quick to flee as a pantry mouse would trail along after someone as abrasive as Felix—he didn't deny this trait in himself, nor did he care about others' opinions of it—in the hopes of glimpsing a rare smile. 

Even so, the notion of her braving the outdoors in spite of her terror to try to make Felix happy had pierced him straight through to his core. The way she had nestled deeply inside him had made him feel threatened somehow, so he had dealt with it the same way he dealt with any threat. With her arrow in his chest, he had spent hours in the training yard that evening, slashing ruthlessly at nothing as if to pare away his own softness. Sore, sleep-deprived, and overwrought, he had known immediately that his efforts were fruitless as soon as he had seen her the next day, and his rare smile had burgeoned without any effort from her. 

He'd hated the way she made him feel at first. She made him think of warm blankets and big, cushiony pillows, and he didn't know how to handle all the fluff. Did gentleness make him weak if he couldn't use it to cut down his enemies? He'd brooded about it for moons after the war's end until he realized that he was acting the way Bernadetta used to, hiding from the unknown. If she could confront the horrors of the battlefield, he should be able to confront that which he did not understand.

And so, he'd fought his own war on the unfamiliar battleground of his mind, and he had come to a conclusion and a course of action. Perhaps he'd been a fool all along, but now he was here. And the door across the room was opening.

Bernadetta shuffled awkwardly into the parlor after a trying walk from her bedroom during which she had almost fallen down the stairs in a spell of dizziness. With every heavy step, she had second-guessed her resolve, wondering if seeing him now was a terrible idea, until she saw Felix sitting in her parlor. Then she knew for sure that it was a terrible idea. A terrible idea to which she had now committed.

“Bernadetta,” said Felix in a curt greeting.

“F-Felix,” Bernadetta responded feebly.

With _Felix_ , the _real_ Felix, _here_ , in _her_ house, two severe, paradoxical urges jerked her in opposite directions. Her anxiety wanted her to sprint back to her room, drown in her shame, and resign herself to a life of anguish and regret. At least then she wouldn't embarrass herself in front of Felix. Her body, on the other hand, goaded her to eliminate the gap between them, coil her arms around his sturdy chest, and press her lips to the tendons in his neck. If she were to bury her nose in his shoulder, what would he smell like? Her amateurish sketches did not do justice to the real thing. 

And despite it all, under the dizzying swirl of conflicting emotions, she was still genuinely glad to see him again after so long apart.

Scolding herself inwardly for both extreme impulses, she crossed the parlor in short, wooden steps and sat gingerly in the chair opposite Felix. Not gingerly enough it seemed when the contact between chair's seat and her neediest parts sent a wave of pleasure rolling up her spine, forcing out a shuddering exhale.

Felix turned his head, regarding her questioningly out of the side of his eyes. “Are you all right?”

Bernadetta fought to get her urges under control, her voice coming out high and reedy. “Y-yep! Bernie's just fine!”

She tittered nervously and leaned forward to take up the empty teacup and pour herself a soothing cup of tea, but tipping her body ground her clit so delectably against the chair that her eyes unfocused. Fighting back a moan, she forwent the tea and sat up perfectly straight, clasping her hands tightly together in her lap and trying to move as little as possible.

Felix absolutely did not believe her. The way she had teetered from the door to the chair in a winding path, the sweat shining on her hairline, the awkward back-and-forth with the teacup—she was a horrible liar. Still, she seemed determined to ignore whatever was going on with her, so he decided to believe that her unusual behavior was just Bernadetta being Bernadetta.

“It's been a while since I last saw you,” Felix ventured after a beat of uncomfortable silence. “How have you been?”

“Great!” Bernadetta chirped, trying to keep her body from falling to pieces. “How about you?”

“Fine,” he replied brusquely.

The silence resumed. Without his words to focus on, Bernadetta couldn't stop her eyes from roving over his body and peeling his clothing away. The slight bulge of his biceps under his shirt meant that he had probably kept up with his training since the war, and the firmness and tone of his lean muscles would definitely reflect that. If she could get her palms on his bare chest, she could verify that for herself. 

His fingers tapped idly against the side of his teacup, drawing her attention to them. Oh, she bet those dexterous fingers could make her come undone by themselves. Her core tightened, and she felt another slick gush flood her second pair of underwear. She swallowed hard before she could openly drool. She had to get her wild thoughts under control before her body couldn't handle it anymore!

Felix watched her sway back and forth like tall grass in the wind and wondered if it was really a good idea for him to do this today. The longer he spent sitting across from her, the clearer it was to him that this was not “Bernadetta being Bernadetta.” Was she sick? Why would she say she was fine when it was so obvious that something was wrong?

But he knew how hard it was for her to leave her room on a good day. Despite whatever afflicted her, she had still come to meet him. He remembered how afraid of him she used to be, how she used to scream and run and hide at the sight of him. Seeing her now, it was almost like being back at Garreg Mach, with how she would follow him around to discover things that could make him smile even though it seemed like most everything still terrified her. He believed it was the same kind of determination that drove her now, and it would be unfair for him to disregard her inner strength. 

He just had to find his own inner strength now. His nervousness would be so much easier to deal with if he could just cut it down with his sword like any other adversary.

“I guess I should just come right out with it then.” Felix spoke in a tone tinged with trepidation.

Bernadetta jumped at the sudden reintroduction of noise, but Felix resolved to push forward, setting his teacup down on its saucer with such force that lukewarm tea sloshed over the side. Grimacing at the mess, he resisted the urge to wall himself off with any of his standard barbs. If he reverted to old habits now, he risked scaring Bernadetta back into hiding. He dipped one gloved hand into his pocket before he could invent another reason to hesitate and then thrust his fist over the table, opening it to reveal a fine silver ring. 

“I want you to marry me.” That sounded too demanding. “Please.” That was hardly better. Perhaps he ought to have determined what he was going to say ahead of time, but it was too late now.

“F-Felix, I...” Bernadetta stammered, her eyes bouncing back and forth between the ring and his face.

It was as if the floor had dropped out from under her, sending her spinning into a dark and endless vacuum. Tumbling in the void, her brain attempted to reconcile the self-loathing she had engraved into her identity with Felix's mind-bendingly diametric declaration. The two titanic contraries demanded more of her poor mind than she could give as the tightening knot in her core seized more and more of her attention. 

A wild cyclone of thoughts snapped her up in its wrathful spiral. She was a failure. Her heart ached for him. She didn't deserve him. Her whole body ached for him. She was never going to be a bride. His hand was reaching out to her. She wanted his hand. She wanted his body. She wanted his fingers, his hands, his arms, his chest, his lips, his _cock_ — 

She swooned, pitching forward, and it was curtains for Bernie. That one motion pressed her swollen clit into the chair, and her over-sensitive, keyed-up, yearning body finally wrenched from her the orgasm she had denied. 

“Aah—hmm!” She managed to clamp her mouth down on the back half of her cry but could do nothing to stop the pleasured mewls that still leaked out past her closed lips.

Her entire body shuddered as the tension in her core exploded in an electrifying burst, and her inner walls convulsed fervently around nothing, squeezing out more fluid and staining the chair's cushion. Her mind's eye painted a vivid image: _Felix's cock stretching her around him, pushing deep, deep, deeper!_ Her hands smacked the chair's arms and gripped tightly, her hips unconsciously rocking and grinding downward, chasing the aftershocks. She panted harshly, taking in great gulps of air as the world veered in and out of focus behind her fluttering eyelids.

The clatter of something falling onto the table cut through Bernadetta's delirium and forced her attention back to the parlor. It took only one look at Felix's wide eyes and the ring laying forgotten on the table for her stomach to tangle into a queasy knot. Her heart seized and twisted. By some merciful providence, she had been given a chance at true love, and she had ruined it irreparably.

“I-I'm so sorry!” She stammered miserably once she was able to wring the words out of her tightened throat. “D-don't look at me!”

With a heartbroken wail, she sprung up from the chair and whirled around to dash out of the parlor and lock herself in her bedroom for the rest of her life. She made it only a few steps, however, before her legs bent like wet noodles and gave out, dropping her face-down on the floor with a thud. Every nerve in her still sensitive body sang out in pain, and the strings of her anguished heart accompanied them in a hopeless requiem, lamenting all that was _Bernie_. Her legs defunct, she heaved herself up onto shaking arms and, with no way to escape, could only cry.

“My f-father was right!” She sobbed, tears dripping onto the floor. “I'm w-worthless! I'm _unmarriageable!_ You'd have to be _insane_ to ever want me! I've m-messed up everything _forever_ , and now you're going to _hate_ me! _Bernie's just no good!_ ”

She chanced a glance towards the couch where Felix had been sitting only to find him kneeling beside her. He'd never hurt her before—he never would, she would realize if she were in a state to consider it—but crying on the floor of the Varley parlor was too bitterly familiar to her. Stuck in the well-worn groove of her past, she could come to only one conclusion—that he sought to mete out his ire.

She choked out her words in a bid for her life. “I know I'm disgusting, but—”

Felix cut her off with a scoff. “Ridiculous,” was all he said at first.

He had figured there were a few ways Bernadetta could respond to his proposal, and while this was definitely _not_ one of them, his heart truly went out to her. The old Felix may have shunned the feeling, but he knew better now.

“You're not disgusting, or worthless, or...whatever it is you keep telling yourself, and your father's an idiot.” Felix asserted, hunting down the most honest words. Bernadetta had shown her conviction meeting him today in spite of everything. Now it was time for him to prove his own. “You haven't messed up anything. I don't hate you. Don't say that no one wants you because—” It was still so hard to say it out loud. “Because _I_ want you.”

Bernadetta's eyes widened in disbelief.

“Still?” She ventured, scared but hopeful.

Felix nodded.

“This isn't some sort of trick?” If it was, she was sure she'd die.

Felix shook his head.

“Then why?” She asked in earnest amazement.

Felix made an expression that Bernadetta had never seen on him before. He tilted his head down and away from her, his eyes following, and...was that a blush?

“Don't make me say it.” He murmured, his mouth crumpled into a scowl.

Bernadetta dared to smile a little, dared to believe in a happy future for herself. Despite her own perceived worthlessness, despite her shame, despite her father's cruel words, Felix was still going to marry her. She hadn't ruined anything. And perhaps, if Felix's uncharacteristic bashfulness was to be understood the way it strongly implied, he was going to marry her for the most wonderful reason: _for love._

“I love you too,” she replied in a voice barely above a whisper. Admitting her love for him out loud, and not just to wishing stars, soothed an ache she didn't know she had. “And I'd love to marry you, if you'll have me.”

Felix looked back up at her to find her smiling, the first genuine one he'd seen on her face that day. He couldn't help but smile back.

“Good.”

Bernadetta sniffled, wiping away a few more tears, but these tears manifested joy rather than sadness. She went through a few cycles where she would almost calm down, but then another wave of emotion would wash over her, and she'd laugh a little and cry a little more. All the while, Felix sat on the floor with her, simply waiting. They would have a lot more moments like this from here on out, riding the waves of life's ups and downs, _together._

Once Bernadetta seemed to be mostly composed, Felix asked, “Can you stand?”

Bernadetta wiggled her legs, testing their strength. “I think so.”

Felix stood and offered her his hand, pulling her up to her feet. Even after she was once again standing, their right hands remained clasped like the beginning of a handshake. The unfamiliar realm of touch, of the physical affection they both secretly wanted, lay wide open for the pair of new lovers to stumble through, if they could figure out how to surmount the steep hills of their own awkwardness.

Felix released her hand like it was starting to burn him, and Bernadetta tittered. His eyes flitted around the room for somewhere to land when— _ah!_ He strode to the tea table to fetch up the ring from where he had dropped it in his surprise and returned to Bernadetta to offer it to her once more, this time with the assurance that she would definitely accept it. Instead of taking it from him, however, she held up her left hand with her fingers splayed apart and looked up at him, waiting. He frowned, not understanding.

“Um, I want you to put it on my finger,” Bernadetta clarified.

 _Tch,_ how sentimental. He should have figured Bernadetta would be the romantic sort. Still, he couldn't refuse her, and if that made him sentimental too, he didn't care anymore. With an exaggerated roll of his eyes, he slid the ring onto her finger all the way down to the knuckle.

Bernadetta gazed blissfully down at the sparkling proof of Felix's affection. She had read countless stories about true love, bitterly resigned to the idea that it would never happen to her. In her favorites, two lovers who had overcome great peril and defied the odds to be together swore their eternal devotion to each other. One would present the other with a shining ring or a dew-dappled red rose, and the other would tearfully and joyously accept. Then, they would seal their promise with a passionate kiss.

Bernadetta peered up at Felix through her eyelashes. Maybe she could be a storybook heroine.

“Should...should we...kiss?”

Felix made a strangled, startled noise like he had accidentally swallowed a bug. There was that face again, his eyes pointedly avoiding hers, and— _yes!_ —that was definitely a blush.

“If you want to,” he conceded.

Her temporary boldness was crumbling. If he didn't want to kiss her, making him do so would be just about the worst thing in the world. “I mean, I w-would really like to, but if you don't want to, I understand...”

Felix gently cut her off with a heavy sigh. Of course he wanted to. He had for a while (which was its own realization he'd had to come to terms with); he was just so unacquainted with tenderness and affection and all the little floating butterflies that came with them. 

Despite the unfamiliarity, he didn't want to deny either of them. He stepped in close to her and gracelessly grabbed her face in his hands, his eyebrows furrowed together as if in conference on how to best go about this. His head tipped to one side, then the other.

“You—you really don't have to if you don't want to,” said Bernadetta, her words coming out strangely from the way he was squishing her cheeks.

“Quiet,” he sputtered, trying not to pay too much attention to the way her eyes glittered like silver.

Scrunching his eyes closed, he swiftly leaned in and pushed his mouth against hers. It was artless and tense, but his heart still thrummed mightily at the pliability of her lips. He had never loved something so soft, not before Bernadetta. He held his breath against her for a few more seconds then pulled away so fast his head spun.

“Was that all right?” He managed, pressing a fist to his mouth. There was no way he could look at her right now. He felt like his face was giving off steam.

Borne away on glittering pegasus wings to a land where dreams really do come true, Bernadetta could only nod. Felix had actually kissed her! In real life! It was...forceful, and quick, and awkward, and _theirs._ In short, it was perfect.

Felix's stilted voice reached across the divide and guided her back to the parlor. “Do you...want another one?” His face was definitely still red, but his full attention was on her now, the gravity of his gaze magnetic.

Another one? Truly? Of course she wanted another one—and another one, and another one, and _another one._ As many kisses as Felix wanted to give her, she would receive happily. She nodded again, hopeful stars twinkling in her eyes.

Felix shuffled in place. “Then, um, come here.”

Bernadetta took the cue to step back into the sturdy wall of his chest, determined not to mess this up with overeagerness. With her excitement tenuously reined in, her hands alighted on his shoulders gently, her fingers bearing only the gentle pressure of gravity. When she looked up at his face, his eyes glowed like smoldering embers.

She drew in a shuddering breath and pulled him down to set her lips to his. The edge of their nervousness had blunted after their first, so their second kiss was much easier, and Bernadetta sighed, relaxing into it. Felix set his hands on her upper arms, his touch light, but tension coiled in his fingers. An anticipatory undercurrent passed back and forth between them through their points of contact, the subtle build compelling Bernadetta's fingertips to press more firmly into Felix's shoulders. When this kiss ended, their faces lingered so close together that she could marvel in his quiet wonder, his lips slightly parted.

There was no longer any question of whether there would be more kisses—they were in agreement on that front, leaning in to press their lips together again and again and again. The question now was how far they would let their passion go. 

The sound of footsteps from the hallway drew their attention abruptly, waking them out of their shared dream. Thankfully, the steps receded, passing the parlor on their way to some other destination, but the couple's minds had already caught up with their bodies. It wouldn't be unreasonable for a steward or a maid to come into the parlor to refill the teapot or offer snacks to the lady of the house and her guest. If someone caught them kissing...well, there probably wouldn't be any real consequences, but Bernadetta would probably die of embarrassment, and Felix would fare no better. If they wanted to continue, they would have to employ some level of discretion.

“Do you want to go to my room?” Bernadetta heard herself ask, unable to keep her hands from kneading the firm muscles of Felix's shoulders.

She caught the very real implication behind the question after it had already departed, and she sucked in a sharp breath. What was she thinking, being so bold? She shouldn't be greedy—she should be thankful that Felix was still here, still wanted to marry her, still kissed her after her embarrassing display earlier and not push her luck, even though she never wanted to leave his arms ever again. Panicked, she opened her mouth to attempt to stitch together some sort of apology, but Felix's response came first. 

“Okay.”

***

Felix felt like he was entering the Holy Mausoleum when he followed Bernadetta into her room, like he was being granted a rare and sacred right by stepping inside the room where so few others had ever been allowed. Bernadetta had always maintained her room at the academy as her sanctuary and rarely, if ever, invited others inside. And here, at the Varley estate, was the room in which she must have spent literal years, her first and longest refuge.

“So, um, this is my room,” Bernadetta said as Felix shut the door behind himself.

Felix took in the space slowly, much like the way he had observed the parlor, though his anxiety this time was suffused with a pleasantly impatient twist. The furnishings in Bernadetta's room were all very typical, but Bernadetta had imprinted her personality on each and every piece. Her desk (big enough for someone to lie on) and its pigeonhole shelves were overwhelmed with various papers, pens, and inkwells just as her bookshelf overflowed with books. Her vanity had on its surface (room enough for someone to sit) needles, thread, and an embroidery hoop, a conical cluster of pinkish white flowers stitched halfway to completion. Even her windowsills (too narrow for anything but a hand) were occupied by tiny pots, all of them painted, containing little carnivorous plants, their spiny mouths open and waiting. And on the far end of the room lay her bed, piled high with fluffy, frilly pillows and a menagerie of plush creatures. He could picture her lying decadently in that cushiony nest, surrounded by softness, but nothing as soft as she herself.

He took a deep, centering breath. All of these vague, incomplete thoughts were skittering around in his head like a gaggle of unruly children. He had to exercise some discipline before he got carried away.

“Um,” Bernadetta started, the one non-word like a droplet of water falling into a lake, rippling outward through the stillness.

By the tense, flat line of her mouth and his knowledge of her general tendencies, Felix could guess she was about to start catastrophizing again. It was going to be his responsibility as her husband—what a word that was!—to support her mental well-being, a responsibility he would handle with his usual tenacity and straightforwardness, even if he didn't entirely know what he was doing.

“Look, Bernadetta,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders because that seemed like a good place for them to be. He had a couple ideas as to what she was worried about and intended to cut down her concerns in one swing. “I'm here because I want to be.” He paused to assemble his thoughts. “But I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do either.”

Bernadetta smiled, but her brows pinched together with tension. “I know all that. I just...I don't want you to regret anything.”

Was that all? Felix didn't consider that a problem in the slightest. “Well, I don't. And I won't.”

Felix was always so confident, so self-assured. It was one of the things Bernadetta liked the most about him.

He was always so direct, too, proceeding to confront that which she was certain they were both wondering about. “So what do you want to do?”

Bernadetta already knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to pick up where they had left off in the parlor. She wanted to feel where his mouth and hands might travel, when given the chance, and kiss and touch him in return. She wanted the fire, the lightning, the fantasies that her brain had sprung on her in the parlor, and she wanted to share them all with Felix. Would it be okay for her to have all those things?

“I...” she began, mustering her strength to take a page out of Felix's book. “I want to do... _everything._ ” She squeezed her jaw shut, trying not to babble even though the admission made her lightheaded.

Felix inhaled sharply. Was that too much? She had no clue; she couldn't read his expression as he exhaled slowly, and his eyes glinted. “All right,” he replied, low as a panther's purr.

He set his gloved hands on her face, much more gently this time, and they both leaned in to meet in the middle. Their lips moved together, exploratory and tentative. Bernadetta tilted her head to deepen the kiss, and she felt Felix's answering groan rumble deep in her chest. 

They separated for a brief exchange, a silent communication of flickering, half-lidded eyes, before diving back in, panting into each other's mouths. This was really happening, and it was _good._ When Felix first touched his tongue to hers, Bernadetta squeaked in surprise but then wound her arms around his neck to pull him even closer. Amateurish, yet eager and growing bolder, the heated caress of lips and tongues elevated wetly.

Felix was certain he'd lost his mind; the nonsense that Sylvain had yammered on about was actually starting to make sense. He had never known how someone else's touch could sizzle on his skin, never cared to know, but now he had become completely inebriated on Bernadetta's supple lips and the sweet little noises she made into his mouth. He wanted to drown in her. Driven by impulse, he hooked his arms around her waist and charted a path of kisses across her face, already smeared with saliva, and down the tender column of her neck, drinking in the whines that leaked out of her with each breath.

“Hah, _Felix,_ ” she moaned, and he growled greedily at the way the sound buzzed under his lips.

Bernadetta's hands mapped every part of his back that she could reach, memorizing the smooth planes of muscle with her palms. The kisses, hot stamps against her throat, moved down to her collarbone before Felix latched his lips to it and sucked. A throaty cry clamored out of her, her fingers tightly clutching the fabric of his coat. She grounded her face in the crook of his shoulder and breathed in his scent of pine and old smoke. It was all so exhilarating, like when she'd been yearning for him from across the tea table in the parlor, but so much better now that she had Felix to answer the call of her body. She wanted it to go on forever.

He had cut a hole in the bag in which she had bundled all of her thoughts and dreams of him, and now they poured out irreversibly. Anything he was willing to give her, she would take, and anything he wished to take, she would give. When his palms slid tantalizingly from the small of her back to the curve of her rear, she hauled him up by the head into another messy kiss. And when his fingers gripped the flesh there, she leaned her body in heavily to be flush with his.

Felix widened his stance as Bernadetta sagged against him to keep them both from toppling to the floor. Her weight against him was aphrodisiac, the feeling of so much of her body all at once. He had to take her to bed. Wrapping both arms around her thighs, he swept her up and practically tossed her onto her back on the mattress, clambering up after her into her waiting arms. Her legs folded over his hips in a full-body embrace as he bracketed her body on his hands and knees.

“Felix... _t-touch me,_ ” Bernadetta entreated him, flushed and dark-eyed.

She wouldn't need to ask him twice. He reared up just enough to whip off both of his gloves and toss them aside. “Where?” He rasped.

She clutched one of his hands in both of hers and drew it in to lay heavily on her breast. “H-here.”

He froze in a brief dumbstruck moment before his brain caught up with him, and his fingers set to work immediately. His other hand, not wanting to be left out, joined in on the other side to knead both breasts symmetrically. Determined to draw out more of her high, airy cries, his hands experimented firmly and insistently.

“Ah! Ohh, Felix, mmm!” Such sounds could only mean that Bernadetta was feeling good, an obvious conclusion that inflated Felix with pride.

He swallowed her euphoria in an open-mouthed kiss, ignoring the way their teeth bumped together and instead directing his attention to the way her fingers tangled into his hair. He hadn't known how erotic she could be until earlier in the parlor, and now that he knew, he was completely engrossed in discovering more. The way her body writhed under his touch was so similar to the way she had twisted in her chair as she came—he wanted to see her come again.

When he ran his thumbs over her nipples through the fabric of her tunic, she arched upward into his touch, and his cock strained against the front of his pants, thick and interested. There was far too much clothing involved still, he decided. Tugging down the neckline of her tunic, he exposed her breasts to the open air and his hungry gaze. His hands returned to get their fill as well, rolling her cute, pink nipples with his fingertips. She undulated upwards into his touch, shuddering and lovely.

He attempted to describe the art of her; she deserved to know just how wrong her father was. “You're so...” Enchanting? Arousing? Gorgeous? His mouth couldn't articulate a good enough word, so he put it back to work sucking kisses on her neck.

Bernadetta couldn't catch her breath. Her addled imaginings couldn't compare to reality. Felix had truly magnificent hands, especially paired with his keen focus and well-trained dexterity. His mouth, too, was better than dreams, lips and teeth planting stinging kisses all over her face and neck. At the feeling of something hot and firm bearing into her inner thigh, her core _throbbed._

Craving more contact, Bernadetta drove her heels into Felix's back, sending his hips crashing down onto hers. The sudden impact of the bulge of his cock with her sex knocked the wind out of him, as if he had been punched, and she moaned high and loud at the proof of his arousal pressed right up against where she ached the most. Bernadetta bucked upwards, rubbing directly against his hardness, and Felix was quick to respond, matching her movements. From the insistent roll of his hips to the breathy groans that poured out in between kisses, she delighted in every expression of his enjoyment. They rocked their hips together asynchronously, grinding out sparks and conjoined moans in a simulation of what was to come.

 _What was to come_ couldn't come soon enough as the rub of her wet underwear against her sex was becoming uncomfortable. Like a scrap of spare fabric, she was fraying at the edges, coming unraveled with her desire to have him inside her. She shoved Felix up roughly and ignored his momentary dismay to wrestle her shorts and smallclothes down her legs, only for them to get twisted up on her boots.

To see his Bernadetta, who was normally so shy, in such a frenzy to bare herself to him...Felix might have taken the time to appreciate the contrast had she not been rolling around on her back like a stuck turtle. Still, he couldn't deny that he wanted those clothes gone as much as she did. He had an easier vantage, and with the help of his impatient hands, her shorts, her smalls, both boots, and one yellow sock landed in a heap on the floor. With a hand behind each of Bernadetta's knees, Felix bent her legs up and apart to fully take her in.

“ _Shit,_ ” he breathed.

Her whole body had bloomed into beautiful rosy shades. She covered her face, red under his scrutiny, with both hands but still peeked through the gaps in between her fingers with steel-dark eyes. He followed the path of color past the blooming marks he left on her neck to her breasts, where her nipples had hardened and pinkened under his fingers' persistent rolling and pinching. And farther down, the hem of her tunic had folded up to expose her sex, flushed and glistening.

“F-Felix... _please,_ ” Bernadetta begged breathlessly.

With her sweet pleas and her deliciously debauched body beneath him, she had him utterly conquered; Felix felt that he had both lost and won at the same time. He released his hold on her legs to fumble with the fastenings of his pants; he probably lost a button somewhere in this process, but it didn't matter because he was able to wrest his cock free.

At Bernadetta's squeak, Felix realized that she had probably never seen one before. He figured it would be best for her comfort to give her time to get acquainted with it, but the longer she stared, the more uncomfortable he got. After a good twenty seconds, he cleared his throat, and her intense gaze snapped up to his face. 

“Ah! S-sorry!” She stammered. “Um, I trust you! J-just...go slow, okay?”

Felix was going to spend the rest of his life protecting this girl because he was not going to be able to handle it if anything ever hurt her, and he had to lean in and kiss her right at that moment to keep himself from saying any of that out loud.

Bernadetta's breath shuddered with nervous excitement as Felix pressed the spongy head of his cock against her sex.

“Ready?” He rumbled.

Her head bobbed in a rapid nod. “Um, I think it's a little lower.”

He adjusted and edged slightly forward, and Bernadetta bit her lip as he breached just the littlest bit.

“Here?”

“Yeah.”

Felix sank into her slowly yet unrelentingly until his cock seated fully in her. Bernadetta tried, with minimal success, to keep her breathing steady. It was unbelievable, not just the novel feeling of him occupying this space inside her she'd never been so aware of before, but also the situation itself. Her lack of self-worth had convinced her that no man would ever want her this way, and yet Felix, the man she was going to marry, the man she _wanted_ to marry, had given himself to her, for no reason other than _because he wanted to._ She watched her fingers as they trailed down her body and pressed in wonder just above the line of her pubic hair to feel his firmness distantly beneath her skin.

She looked back up at Felix, who was panting and flushed even though he wasn't moving. Usually, his eyes were steely, his inner workings walled off behind a prickly shell. She'd seen the way they were in battle, too, that steel honed to a severe edge of piercing focus. Occasionally, she'd been able to glimpse past the barbs, bask in his hidden warmth, before he'd become aware of his vulnerability, and the wall of icy stalagmites would return. 

But now, his eyes were molten copper. His armor was gone. His attention, bare and intense, transfixed her under its full weight.

He was waiting for her, she realized.

He gulped, taking a moment to wet his dry mouth. “You okay?”

Bernadetta considered the question. The sensation of him inside her, while still wholly unique, was totally absent of the pain she'd been told to expect.

“I'm okay,” she confirmed. And then, as a shy request, with all the love in her heart, “Go ahead.”

Felix leaned down, or perhaps Bernadetta pulled him down, into a kiss before he gripped her hips with both hands and began to move, slow and easy. They moaned in unison as he set the pace. Felix's gaze vacillated back and forth between her face, rapturous and glowing with affection, and the junction of her tender body taking his cock over and over with each short, deep thrust.

“Good?” Felix panted.

“Yeah,” Bernadetta panted back. “K-keep going.”

Felix braced both palms on the bed and upped his tempo, drawing his hips back a little farther now with each pull. The silky pressure of her walls on his cock was addictive; he couldn't get enough of her. She was so soft and sodden inside that he felt like he could melt. 

Bernadetta anchored her hands on the back of his head and dragged his mouth down onto hers, her fingers gripping as though he would float away if her hold were too loose. His hair collapsed out of the leather tie in which he had it bound and hung around her face in a midnight curtain. She canted her hips to meet each plunge, trying to accept just a little bit more of him.

In between heavy, devouring kisses, she babbled against his mouth, “Aah, Felix, _so good,_ m-more!”

Felix slammed into her voraciously now, the wet smack of his cadence ringing out alongside her high whines and his breathy grunts. With each push inside her, now utilizing nearly his full length, his cock buffeted somewhere deep inside her that made her cries reverberate in the cavity of Felix's mouth.

The mounting pleasure was overwhelming and scary. Each punch of his cockhead wound her tighter and tighter like an overwrought clock, and Bernadetta was running out of time. Unlike earlier in the parlor, however, she knew now that if she were to fall apart completely, Felix would gather up all her springs and cogs and put her back together.

As her peak drew near, the constant string of noises from Bernadetta took on a desperate tone—“Oh! Felix! _Felix!_ ”—and, clinging to her Felix, she yielded herself to her climax.

If Felix had thought her earlier orgasm was an enrapturing spectacle, causing it, being a part of it, was an _experience._ Her sweet wail was all the more beautiful in its full, uninterrupted duration, and there was so much for him to feel now, too, from the press of her body into his as her back arched like a bow to the dig of her fingers knitted into his hair. His pace faltered as her passage pulsed and fluttered around him as if trying to pull him deeper.

“Oh...oh, _I love you,_ ” she sighed in a way that struck his heart as truly as one of her arrows. “Keep going. Let me feel you too.”

She had him utterly sunk. His hull was cracked, she flooded into him, and he, waterlogged, was sinking, sinking, drowning in her just like he wanted. All he could do now was ride the current, surrender to the riptide.

As he struggled to regain his rhythm, that tender, embarrassing truth fought its way out of his throat without his say. “Love you— _ghh!_ —so much...”

He couldn't look at her, not after an admission like that, so with a hand on the back of her head, he shoved her face into his shoulder and held fast. 

Felix had made it so simple for Bernadetta to do just what she wanted, to fling her arms around his shoulders and squeeze, to enjoy the ultimate closeness to him in the ebbing waves of her orgasm and the dearness of his raw and honest affection. She felt him thrust once, twice, and then one last time before he emitted a shuddering groan and stilled, an unfamiliar warmth blooming inside her abdomen.

Once Felix released his hold on her, Bernadetta eased back onto the bed. His eyes were scrunched closed as he caught his breath, but when she reached up to cup his face she could see his brow relax. The shape of his cheek changed under her palm as his mouth curved into a precious smile, and when his eyes opened, they were such a tender chestnut that she felt her joy would leak out of her eyes.

She rested her thumb in the divot at the corner of his mouth. “I love your smile.”

Felix hadn't even realized he was smiling. His walls thoroughly demolished, he allowed his head to tip into her palm, to trust her with his happiness. Her face lit up like starlight, soft and glowing. Leaning in, he set his forehead on hers, and they floated together on a cloud of bliss, peacefully drifting through a paradisial, cerulean sky. 

It was too bad they couldn't stay there forever. They returned to their normal plane of existence as the sweat cooling on their bodies started to become uncomfortable. Sitting up, Felix found that his sword belt had twisted around him such that the scabbard lay across his back. _He hadn't taken the damn thing off in the parlor?_ He realized with chagrin that he had just had sex for the first time while armed. What was worse, he couldn't even find it in himself to be surprised.

He must have made a face because Bernadetta's voice came through with a noticeable tint of her usual anxiety. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything's fine,” he replied. Honestly, it was. Then, “Come on. Let's clean up.”

They ended up sharing a bath in Bernadetta's broad, oblong bathtub. With rose-scented soap, they washed away the happenings of the day, leaving only the memories. This would be one they both cherished dearly: after they were both clean, Bernadetta nestled into Felix's arms as he reclined on one end of the tub, locks of their hair swirling and mingling in the bathwater like ribbons in the breeze.

As Felix settled under her weight, he recounted the day's events. So much had changed over such a short period of time. There was a lot that he was going to have to get used to.

“We're going to have a kitty...and a family...and be together forever,” Bernadetta mumbled, nearly asleep on Felix's chest.

Felix wound his arms around her just a little more tightly. That was one thing to which he'd have to adapt, the honesty of Bernadetta's heart and the way his own heart would leap in the presence of it. Cuddling, too, that was new. He was so used to keeping people at sword's length that to let someone so close to him now felt like he was being somehow defanged. But it was all right; he didn't need his fangs with her. She quite liked what she saw in him—the “good stuff,” as she called it.

Someday, he'd figure out how to let her hear all the embarrassing thoughts he had when she was around. For now, this was enough.

Later, Felix would step outside with his sword, cleaving the air and honing himself to his usual sharpness. Even later, he and Bernadetta would sit down together and make plans, when to wed, where they would live, the shape of their combined future. But for now, Felix would lie with Bernadetta in the bathtub and hold her until the water grew cold, whispering love into her hair.


End file.
